'Breweries find craft ale is not just small beer'

Depending where you sup, cask ale is the preserve of hirsute, pot-bellied men with their groove stuck firmly with Fairport Convention or hip youths who probably do not have the 1970s folk-rock band on their iPhones. But whichever end of the bar you sit at, this is a rare bright spot in the UK's beer industry. While total beer sales fell 4 per cent in the year to 2009 - erasing 1.3m barrels from consumption - cask beer did not spill a drop - Financial Times​

One of the big four supermarkets gets planning permission every working day of the year and at least 577 Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Asda stores have been approved over the last two years. The figures, collected for a BBC Panorama special, give some sense of the scale of supermarket development activity in Britain - The Guardian​

Sales of port, the quintessential Christmas tipple, have jumped this year as more consumers embrace sweet wines and want to have as a traditional festive holiday as possible. Retailers said that port's renaissance was partly because it appeared Britons had developed a sweeter tooth, learning to like both sweet aperitifs as well as pudding wine - The Telegraph​

Police equipped with new X-ray technology will revisit pubs and nightclubs across the west of Scotland where glass attacks have occurred to check they have switched to safer drinking vessels - Herald Scotland​

Rotherham's World Cup referee Howard Webb was asked to bring his skills into play and officiate at the re-opening of his local pub. Brinsworth-born Howard said he was delighted to be asked to undertake the official opening at The Sidings in Brinsworth, Rotherham And a large number of locals and other Rotherham folk turned out to see him - South Yorkshire Star​